


and when i dream, i'll dream of you

by ZephyrEden



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dreams, Dreamsharing, Introspection, M/M, always a little bit of introspection bc My Brand (tm), takes place during post com days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 19:10:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20626100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZephyrEden/pseuds/ZephyrEden
Summary: Riku was never surprised to learn he was a dream eater.my piece for the Cross the Line zine.





	and when i dream, i'll dream of you

Riku knows when he’s dreaming.

He knows because he does his best these days to never dream. He doesn’t have _dreams_ anymore. Dreams imply that they might contain something nice or nonsensical or any other mixture of things that don’t fall towards terror. He stays awake for as long as he can because exhaustion breeds dreamless sleep. Anything else only brings nightmares, and with them, visions of an all-consuming darkness he can’t hope to escape.

Riku knows when he’s dreaming which is why he’s left reeling in confusion when he finds himself in the soft familiar warmth of the islands he grew up on with no sign of black coats around, only the peaceful image of Sora in the distance. He’s laying in the sand, face towards the sun as he sleeps soundly to the soothing lullaby of the waves.

His feet move without consent. His shoes don’t slip on the sand like they’re supposed to, instead sinking into it like a sponge before bouncing back up and throwing him off balance. He doesn’t let it stop him. His hands catch himself before he can fall, propelling him further, faster, closer to Sora as quickly as possible. Never quick enough. He’s worried this will turn into a nightmare. That the shore will start to stretch on and on, that the ground will start moving him in reverse so he drifts away, away, away, always too far away. That Sora will remain ever out of reach. _His_ reach.

The shore doesn’t shrink. He can feel the sting of the sun burning red into his bare shoulders, can see how it’s left Sora rosy once he’s close enough. He can feel how it swelters like the hottest summer days until it’s suffocating, the air heavy and weighing down on him with the pressure until he drops to his knees beside Sora.

“Sora?” he asks and the word wisps out of him on little more than a breath. He’s used to nightmares, but not ones like this. Not ones with the potential to shatter him like this. If the Sora in his dreams is lost to him too, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. “Sora!” he says again, a little louder and a lot more panicked. All he can hear is the blood rushing in his ears, blocking out the sound of the breeze and the waves, surrounding him like an all-consuming static, like a void that-

“Riku?”

Riku blinks and the world falls silent, his eyes focused on Sora as he yawns and swipes at his sleepy eyes. Sora blinks back before his lips turn into a lazy smile, one that fills Riku with a warmth the sun couldn’t hope to compete with. The heat isn’t stifling. He can breathe.

“Riku,” Sora repeats, seeming to grow happier the longer they stare at each other. “I haven’t seen you in a while.” Sora frowns and Riku can’t help the sudden rush of self-loathing he’s filled with when he hears his next question. “Where did you go?”

He doesn’t know how to answer that. “…Well,” he starts then immediately wishes he didn’t. Sora tilts his head, watching him and waiting for a good explanation. Riku’s mouth clamps shut out of self-preservation. His heart really can’t handle being a disappointment right now. “Top secret,” he forces out, his face falling into a faux expression of smugness just a bit too easily for his liking. “Which means you don’t get to know about it.”

Sora’s face falls immediately and dramatically. “Aw, _what_? Come on, Riku, that’s no fair,” he whines, flopping back on the sand. “You’re probably off with the King having adventures of your own, while I’m stuck in this-” He opens his mouth to continue his tirade on the unfairness of it all when something strange flashes across his face.

A blink of light, too quick to clearly see, steals across him and Riku can’t help but feel an equally strange sensation — that he has bore witness to the breaking of something. Something precious.

Sora’s lids start to droop and it feels like the wind has been stolen from the islands. Within the quiet stillness of a single moment, Riku learns to know the soul of loneliness.

“Sorry, I…I can’t…” Sora slurs, like it’s taking all of his strength to string together a thought. “Remember…” He tries to sit up but his hands slide on the sand, dragging him back to the surface. Riku can’t move. “I’ll see… see you later…”

Sora nods off, lost to the realm of sleep, and Riku finds his eyes drawn to the horizon. There’s a figure standing on the other island.

Riku wakes up with a start and his heart is pounding harder than it ever has from a nightmare.

Riku hasn’t slept in three days. He’s been running around worlds blindly, acting on any little errand DiZ could offer as an excuse to not confront his dreams again.

What would he do if the nightmares were back? Well, if he’s being honest, he’s started to become desensitized to them. They still wake him up, but there’s no more fighting the sheets or waking up with half a sentence dry on his lips. There’s a start and then an unwinding. They can’t win over his exhaustion anymore.

If he was to confront the problem, the answer would be simple - he’s scared to dream of Sora. He’s afraid of becoming complacent, of replacing the real Sora with one of his own creation. One that could easily forgive him. He’s ashamed of it, the entire idea, the very concept that his subconscious could summon such a selfish desire in the one place he truly can’t escape it.

So he stays awake. Or tries to, at least. He isn’t surprised to find he can’t win over his exhaustion anymore, either.

When he opens his eyes, he’s surrounded by the towering buildings of Twilight Town, the perpetual sunset glowing golden across the sky. He’s a bit disorientated, his body aching as if he had plummeted to the ground.

“Finally!”

Riku startles, first at the voice and then again when the face accompanying it swims into view. Sora looks unimpressed, lips pressed together in a way that implies he’s actually kind of worried, but doesn’t want to admit it. “S-Sora?” Riku stammers, somehow more surprised at his appearance the second time around than he was on the first.

Sora’s frown deepens, “You never showed up.”

Riku gathers himself, blinking a few times. “Technically, you were the only one to say see you later.”

Pout forming, Sora narrows his eyes. The grudge doesn’t last long, dissipating after a minute. He crosses his arms behind his head, eyes wandering off to the side. “It gets boring around here without you,” he mumbles.

Riku’s eyes are downcast, his hand coming up to comb through his hair. “…Sorry.” It’s with a delayed realization that he dully notices how short his hair has gotten, a direct contrast to how it’s getting in the waking world.

“Well… whatever.” Sora rolls his eyes playfully and holds out a hand, ready to help Riku up. “You’re here now and that’s what matters.” He doesn’t indulge Riku’s hesitation, taking the reluctantly raised hand in his own and pulling him to his feet. Sora grins, “Let’s go!”

Riku stumbles forward awkwardly as Sora pulls him along. His eyes are glued to their hands, Sora still holding his own in an easy grip.

“I don’t really know where this is, but I think I’ve been here before? There’s a ton of cool shops, though! Way more than there are on the islands!”

He could pull away. He could slip his hand out of Sora’s grasp and he’s fairly certain he would let him.

“And there’s this _huge_ clock tower that- Riku?”

Riku bumps into Sora, too wrapped up in his own trivial thoughts to realize that Sora has stopped. “Sorry.”

Sora frowns again and Riku feels guilty that he’s the cause. “You don’t have to apologize so much, you know. Besides, it’s weird, hearing you say it all the time.”

He’s halfway to apologizing again when he forces himself to swallow the words. His eyes are still locked on their hands. Tilting his head, Sora follows his line of sight and Riku is immediately consumed by the urge to pull away, jump back, put a thousand feet of space between them so Sora can’t figure him out. It’s a dream, he reminds himself, chanting it in his head so he can’t forget it.

Even if this dream Sora figured him out, it doesn’t matter, right? He’s not real, anyways.

He almost believes it. He almost believes it, but then Sora squeezes his hand even tighter, readjusts the position so they’re fingers tangle together and Riku knows he can’t escape now. Not when it feels so wonderful to have their hands fit so perfectly together.

“I’m glad you’re here, Riku,” Sora says honestly, smiling and giving his hand another squeeze. “I’m glad…” he blinks and his eyes glaze over with a flash of light, like he’s trying to remember something that’s no longer in his memory. “I’m glad it’s you…”

Why did he even try to lie to himself about it? Even in his dreams, Sora matters more than anything.

Sora shakes his head and the sound of falling shackles echo faintly in the distance as he comes back to himself. “Besides, it’s really boring when you’re not here.” He starts walking again, swinging their hands as he heads towards the clock tower.

“I’m sure you could find someone else to keep you company,” Riku starts, stopping again when Sora turns to give him a strange look. He tries again. “Aren’t there… others here?” he asks slowly. Two black coats flutter past his peripheries, miles away.

Sora raises a brow then tilts his head, putting a good bit of thought into it. “No? I don’t think so. Not that I’ve seen, at least.” He nods back and forth, confusion lacing his features. “Sometimes, it kinda sounds like someone else might be here? But when I follow the sound, there’s never anything there.” He seems put off by it, but Riku can’t tell if it’s because he can’t find the voices or because there might be someone else there as well.

“…Never?” Riku asks. A shadow flickers in a nearby alley and he hears the sound of wind racing behind him.

Sora shakes his head. “Never.”

Riku stares at a figure in white standing at a window on the other side of town.

“Mmm…” Sora rubs at his eyes and yawns. “Sorry, I’m… I think I’m getting sleepy again. Don’t… Dunno why…” His frustration mixes weakly with the exhaustion and swiftly loses to it. His balance falters and he clings to Riku instinctively to steady himself. Riku catches hold of him just as easily. “I wanna…” He blinks a few times and shakes his head, trying to force more lucidity into his words. “I want to show you… the places I’ve been. So don’t- don’t stay away again. Okay? Promise me.” He’s halfway lost to another dream, but he still stares up at Riku sincerely, seriously. Pleadingly.

Riku finds his dreams are far too effective at getting their way. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

Sora smiles and nods and is lost to sleep once more.

Riku frowns, staring at Sora’s sleeping face through the petaled cocoon he’s wrapped within. The white of the room makes him uncomfortable - too much like Castle Oblivion, too blinding to his shadowed eyes. It’s too still. A room where everything is trapped in stasis and he’s reminded that this is his doing, that it’s his fault that he’s the only one able to move.

Should he really be off gallivanting in dreams while Sora is stuck here?

“I’m sorry it’s taking so long.”

Riku startles, suddenly noticing Naminé a few feet away. A rush of embarrassment runs through him, his hand dropping from where he had lifted one side of his blindfold a few minutes before. “It’s not your fault,” he says, clearing his throat.

Naminé averts her eyes, unsure how true that really is. The ensuing silence is common for them, comfortable until she breaks it. “Have you been dreaming about him?” she asks, voice level and without any hint of ulterior motive.

With a moment of hesitation, he nods. He has long stopped asking how Naminé knows things and instead simply accepts that she does.

“Is that a bad thing?”

His hands curl into tightly clenched fists. “I shouldn’t be wasting my time dreaming, I should be-”

“Maybe,” Naminé cuts him off, a rare occurrence, “they aren’t your dreams.” He raises an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue. She stifles a small laugh, a twinkle in her eye that says she knows more than she’s letting on. “Maybe they’re Sora’s.”

“Never took you for a comedian,” he laughs flatly, but she doesn’t let that stop her.

“He’s been sleeping for so long… I bet,” her eyes drift to the pod guiltily then find Riku’s once more, “he’s getting lonely.”

He frowns. It’s a dangerous line of thinking, letting this be something he doesn’t have to feel ashamed of doing. Still… if it was possible, that somehow he had found a way to find Sora even in his dreams… He also can’t let something like that go for granted.

He pulls on the ends of his blindfold, tightening it until he can feel the folds of the fabric digging into his skin. He can feel Naminé’s eyes on him, silent and disapproving of the action. “I should be going,” he says just to fill the silence with something other than his retreating footfalls. He pauses as he passes her, a sentiment he can’t ignore welling in his throat. “Thank you… Naminé. For helping him… and me.” He feels foolish, the words muddled and more clumsy than they are in his head.

Still, she appreciates it all the same. “Rest well, Riku.”

Riku nods and wonders if he’s deserving of rest.

Days turn to months and Riku finds that time moves much faster when there’s something, anything, to look forward to. He doesn’t dream every night. He doesn’t _try_ to dream every night. He still has things to do and, even on the off chance that what Naminé suggested _was_ miraculously correct, he thinks Sora would understand prioritizing his waking self over a dream.

When it comes to dreaming, though, there are certain things Riku has come to expect.

One - there are no nightmares anymore.

If he doesn’t see Sora, then there’s nothing aside from dreamless sleep. Even within the dreams, the worst that tends to happen, aside from the start he gets every time Sora seems to fall back to sleep, is the appearance of the occasional monster.

He wonders what they’re inspired by; the bodies may be borrowed from some of the stranger Heartless he’s seen, but the vibrant splashes of color are a mystery to him. He thinks that, maybe, if he was alone they might be hard to beat. But unlike the nightmares, he is no longer alone. Even as a figment of his dreams, Sora has skill to back up his tenacity.

Two - there isn’t always a feeling of breaking.

Sometimes when the light flashes and Sora starts to drift, his eyes are bright with a sense of epiphany and his voice isn’t empty when he says his goodbyes. Sometimes, instead of the muffled echo of a thousand pieces of shattered glass hitting the ground, it’s a sensation of things being tied together. The feeling of something falling into place. Sora looks more peaceful when he falls back asleep on those days.

He prefers those days. Other days the breaking is much more intense, sometimes so much so that it feels like he’ll be ripped in half before the feeling ebbs away. Even so, he knows he feels it so much less than Sora, who will collapse against him and dig his fingers into his arms or squeeze his hands until the tiny bones within them creak with threat to break. He doesn’t know how he can stand it. He doesn’t ask, even when Sora leans against him sleepily because he doesn’t have the strength to stand on his own anymore.

Three - Sora isn’t the only one in the dreams, but Riku is the only one that Sora can see.

He’s the only one Sora seems to notice, at least. He knows there are others, though. Some of them he’s seen.

There’s a version of him there, one that’s still twisted up in the darkness and relishes in the power it gives him. He wonders if it’s supposed to him - the real him, the one that Sora knows - or if Sora had run into his replica enough times to leave an impression. Maybe a mixture of the two. He doesn’t know how to feel about there being no differentiation.

Naminé is there for a while, too. She’s there in the distance, in the spaces where Sora never roams, always out of his line of sight. Riku notices that the more he dreams, the less he can see of her. He thinks his eyes are fuzzy at first, but slowly he watches as light starts to be able to filter through her like a prism, a ghost linking chains together. She dims and dims and dims until one day, he stops seeing her altogether.

There are others he can’t see, either.

Sometimes he catches the tail end of a black coat, ones he sees too often now to be unfamiliar, but they always brush past too quickly for him to see what they’re attached to. He has a feeling he might know. Stranger still are the ones he can’t see any part of. The ones he chases down with Sora, where the sound of laughter or the clashing of metal is the only hint they get that something else might exist in that space, somewhere beyond the dead ends it leads them to. It’s a game of hide and seek where they can never be the victors.

Four - Sora loves to show him other worlds.

It’s to the point that every time Riku dreams, they’re in another world. This is what convinces Riku the most that these are his dreams and his alone. This is what his dream has been, ever since he was little. Sora wouldn’t dream of something like this. Not with him alone.

He thinks that, maybe, he’s okay with that. He thinks that, maybe, it’s okay to cherish these moments for no one but himself. So he does.

He lets Sora take his hand and show him the worlds he knows. They ride carpets through deserts and stargaze outside a coliseum and if they happen to press closer to each other each time they meet then neither of them seem to care enough to stop it.

There are only so many worlds they know of, though. Eventually, the ones they know start to run out.

It’s how Riku knows time is running out. The dark clouds swirling a skyscraper aren’t something Sora needs to see yet and it’s not something Riku wants to see any more than he has to. The white room with an empty throne is cold and unwelcoming to both of them.

Time is running out and Riku can’t keep dreaming. He has things to do.

When he opens his eyes he knows immediately that things are different. He can feel it all around him, how time has shifted from an easy drift to a ticking countdown that’s meant to remind me that the time for dreaming is over.

They’re on the island. Back at the start.

It’s the same view of the ocean he’s seen a thousand times, but somehow, this time, it feels different. Like he’s looking at it through eyes that aren’t his own. The sunset tastes like sorrow, somehow.

The waves lap against the sand and with every caress it takes some of it away, shrinking their space until it’s small, small, small. They’re a blip on a canvas; in an infinite expanse of blinding whiteness, they are a deteriorating shelter of color and sound.

Sora looks tired. There’s no period of wakefulness this time, Sora’s eyes drooping like they would when they were young and would stay up past their bedtime to watch the stars shine.

He knows he has to go. He knows the chances that he won’t be coming back. Not as himself, at least.

“You haven’t been here lately.”

Sora sways in place, moving in the same rhythmic pattern of the sea. Even so, lost within his daze, there’s a part of him lucid enough to know that Riku is here. With clumsy movements from sleep-heavy limbs, Sora’s hand reaches out, blindly grasping for Riku’s own.

He shouldn’t be indulging himself. “I’m leaving.”

Somehow, the words seem to snap some life into Sora, a hint of clarity sparking within his glazed eyes. He turns to look at him, the motion off kilter. “What?”

“I won’t be coming back.” Is there even a point to saying this? There’s a hint of betrayal on Sora’s face and Riku wonders why he’s subjecting himself to this.

“You promised,” Sora says flatly, factually. His lips are pressed together tightly to further state his discontent.

Riku winces. “Yeah, I did. I did, but…” Riku clenches his fist, his jaw tightening with the movement. “This is something I promised, too.”

Sora tries to look angry, but it quickly fades into reluctance. “Guess it can’t be helped then,” he sighs. Before Riku can relax, he lunges forward and grasps Riku’s hand tightly with his own. “You just wait, though,” he says seriously, looking Riku dead in the eye before his own expression cracks and breaks into an easy grin. “I’m gonna be right behind you.”

Really, even the Sora in his dreams knows the perfect thing to say to put him at ease. Maybe too much at ease, because he’s forgotten that he shouldn’t be indulging himself, that this whole goodbye is selfish enough already. “You better find me, then. Once you wake up.” He’s forgotten that he shouldn’t be indulging himself, his body leaning forward one last time towards the welcoming warmth that Sora radiates.

It’s just a brush of lips that has them startled into stiffness before they melt easily against each other. It’s a simple kiss, more full of parting than connecting.

The beach is almost entirely gone, the waves only a lingering sound and the sky replaced by a void of stars. Within it, there’s more life and lucidity than the dreams have held yet. Riku smiles, “I don’t want to be leaving you hints forever.”

Sora’s grip tightens, squeezing all his feelings into the palm of Riku’s hand. “You won’t be.”

It feels like a dream, being on the islands again with no blindfold, in his own body once again. It’s the only thing Riku can compare it to as he sits in the sand, watching the sun set with Sora at his side.

It was Sora that called him out here, fidgeting the entire way while claiming that he’s “totally fine.” Riku had rolled his eyes, but let it go. Sora knows he knows him better than that. That’s why he doesn’t push it, waiting for Sora to decide when to speak.

“It’s funny, you know,” Sora eventually starts, nervously, purposely avoiding eye contact while he scratches his cheek to distract from the redness flushing his face. “I, uh. I can’t remember much from, uh… _then_, but…”

“But?” Riku repeats after a few seconds of silence, gentling pressing him to continue. There’s a strange sense of dread building up in the pit of his stomach.

“It’s funny,” Sora says again, this time on an exhale. He drops his hands onto his lap, eyes downcast in what could be mistaken for shyness. “I think… I _swear_ I used to dream of you.”

_“Maybe they aren’t your dreams,” _Naminé’s words echo in Riku’s head. _“Maybe they’re Sora’s.”_

Riku’s heart stops in his chest for just a moment before it explodes into a breakneck pace. He knows he must be turning red, but he can’t bring himself to look at Sora to see if he notices. An awkward laugh erupts from his lips, his hand raising to physically wave the words away. “_Ha_, maybe you’re still dreaming.”

Sora chuckles. “Yeah, maybe. Still, though…” A knowing look crosses his face as he reaches for Riku’s still raised hand, their fingers instinctually tangling together. He smiles, “I wonder…”

Riku softens and catches his tender gaze, unable to ignore how wonderful it feels to have their hands fit so perfectly together.

**Author's Note:**

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